Tag: trump tower moscow

Week 113 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2019 in Politics, Trump

NBC News

Finally the week we’ve been waiting for. Mueller completes his investigation and turns in his final report to Attorney General William Barr. Barr takes two days to review it and send a summary to Congress. It sounds like good news for Trump (no collusion!), but we won’t know for sure until we can see it ourselves. If we can see it ourselves, that is. Mueller declined to make a determination on obstruction, and Barr’s letter barely skims the surface of the content. At any rate, it’s been a little anti-climactic.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. A court releases documents pertaining to the raid on Michael Cohen’s properties. It turns out that when federal prosecutors were investigating Michael Cohen last year, they were easily able to obtain digital data stored in the U.S., but Google wasn’t turning over information stored abroad. That is, until Trump signed the CLOUD Act, which made it easier for the FBI to obtain offshore information.
  2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had planned to leave the DOJ in mid-March, but now it appears he’ll stay on longer to help the new Attorney General and to help his replacement transition in.
  3. The most intriguing thing I read this week is about a Russian journalist who went undercover at the Russian troll factory Internet Research, LLC, in 2014. Unfortunately, her report is in Russian and doesn’t translate well, but here are some highlights:
    • The factory runs 24/7, including holidays, with a few hundred people on every shift.
    • Those who have the best English skills pose as Americans and develop online personas.
    • Her job at the factory was to spark anti-American sentiment among Russians.
    • The factory also employs bloggers to get their message out.
    • The messages they send out are nearly identical to the messages put out by state-run media.
    • Take a look at some of the rallies they held to pit us against each other.
  1. And thus it ends…or does it? Robert Mueller files his final report to Attorney General William Barr, and now it’s up to Barr what to do with the information. Mueller hasn’t recommended any more indictments, though there are several ongoing investigations in district attorneys’ offices, state offices, and the House. Here’s a recap of the entire investigation (as is known to the public) so far. It’s interesting how much we forget.
  2. Remaining open investigations include:
    • Southern District of New York: the hush money payments, Trump’s inaugural fund, campaign finance violations, and the activities of a pro-Trump Super PAC.
    • NY state: Trump Organization real estate deals and possible insurance fraud, Trump Foundation, undocumented workers at Trump’s golf course, and Trump’s taxes.
    • Maryland and D.C. Districts: emoluments clause violations.
    • DOJ: Still investigating at least 12 Russian intelligence agents believed to play a part in the hacking attacks against the DNC.
    • House committees: Russia meddling, obstruction, security clearances, Deutsche Bank’s loans to Trump Organization, tax returns, Saudi Arabian ties, the Trump Tower meeting, and emoluments clause violations.
    • There’s also the Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit, the lawsuit over his legal fees, and Roger Stone’s court case.
  1. By the end of the weekend, just two days after receiving Mueller’s report, Barr delivers a summary of Mueller’s main findings to Congress. Main points, according to Barr:
    • Mueller didn’t find coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the elections.
    • Russian individuals offered several times to assist the Trump campaign.
    • Mueller declined to decide on obstruction of justice charges against Trump (similar to what happened during both the Nixon and Clinton investigations). Mueller did lay out the evidence for both sides of that argument, though.
    • Mueller said his report doesn’t exonerate Trump of obstruction allegations.
    • Barr and Rosenstein won’t charge Trump, but Congress can still look into the charges.
    • Barr promises to release additional information. It’s notable that Ken Starr released his entire report on Clinton to the public.
  1. Trump claims that Barr’s letter proves Mueller’s report exonerates him. At the beginning of the week, though, he said that Mueller’s report is illegitimate because Mueller was never elected.
    • Then Trump says House Republicans should vote to make the Mueller report public, but he later says that there should be no Mueller report. Make up your mind, man!
  1. Trump wants Attorney General Barr to open investigations into Hillary, Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan.
  2. Devin Nunes tells Fox News the Mueller Report should be burned (I wonder why). In other Nunes news, he’s suing two parody Twitter accounts, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, because they were mean to him. And hilariously so.
  3. Leaked bits of a deposition from Christopher Steele show he used web searches and crowdsourced reporting to verify some of the information about Webzilla in his dossier. He wasn’t aware the CNN iReport is not associated with CNN journalists. But that’s only part of the story—he was unable to disclose other methods of investigation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Judicial Watch releases an additional trove of Clinton emails received from the FBI as a result of a FOIA request.
    • Judicial Watch and Fox News claim the emails show that Clinton did the same thing as Michael Flynn by talking to Tony Blair in the days before Obama’s inauguration, that she shared classified information on her private emails, and that she had offers to establish a back channel of communication with Netanyahu.
    • I’m about halfway through reading them, and I don’t see the sharing of classified information, and it’s hard to tell if she overstepped by talking to Blair. It looks like she put off the serious talks until after the inauguration.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Senate Republicans prepare to propose a resolution that would make it easier to confirm Trump’s judicial nominations at the district level by reducing the amount of debate time required.
  2. A county judge in Wisconsin temporarily blocks a bunch of laws passed by last year’s GOP legislature and governor that would have curbed the power of their new governor. The judge says that the legislature convened under an “extraordinary session” which isn’t covered in their state constitution.
    • The ruling cancels 82 appointments made by former governor Scott Walker.
    • Immediately following the decision, Governor Tony Evers takes advantage of the reprieve to pull Wisconsin out of a lawsuit whose aim is to overturn the ACA.
    • Evers could move quickly to enact his own agenda, but he says they’re taking their time to make changes thoughtfully, not impulsively (probably to avoid the same pitfall the GOP fell into here).
  1. The Supreme Court appears split so far in hearings about gerrymandering in Virginia. A lower court already ruled that the gerrymandering there disenfranchises minorities and gives the GOP a boost. House Republicans appealed the case, but it’s not clear they have legal standing to do so.
    • The Court has two similar cases pending for North Carolina and Maryland.

Healthcare:

  1. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that 14 states plus the District of Columbia aren’t in compliance with federal Medicaid laws covering abortion. They don’t cover the abortion pill in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo briefs the State Department on International religious freedoms. They deny access to all media except “faith-based” media, and refuse to release transcripts. They also refuse to release the list of faith-based media on the guest list and the criteria for being invited.
  2. Within six days of the mosque shootings that left nearly 50 people dead, New Zealand passes gun laws banning “military-style” assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. That’s how you get it done, folks.
  3. Trump declares that the U.S. should officially recognized Israel’s occupation of Golan Heights.
  4. Theresa May requests a delay on the Brexit deadline from the EU, and they grant her a short stay. Unless the Parliament can agree on a deal, they have until April 12 to exit.
  5. The ISIS caliphate is destroyed, marking the end of a four-year campaign to wrest control of the land back from the group. This means that they don’t hold any land in Iraq or Syria, but the threat isn’t gone. They’ve already moved to a more traditional terrorist group—a clandestine network running guerrilla attacks.
  6. Trump announces he’s withdrawing the sanctions against North Korea that he said were announced earlier that day. Except no sanctions were announced that day, leading some to believe that he’s referring to sanctions announced the previous day. However, the administration says he’s talking about sanctions that hadn’t even been announced yet and that were super secret. Whoopsies!
    • Fast forward a few days: According to five sources, it turns out that the “secret sanction” story was a cover. Trump was referring to the sanctions announced the previous day but was talked out of withdrawing them. There were no unannounced sanctions.
  1. The U.S. increases the number of troops that will stay in Syria to 1,000.
  2. The U.S. announces new Iran sanctions, this time against 14 people and 17 entities associated with Iran’s defense and research organization, SPND.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Crime is rising in Tijuana, so some people who live there are stealing Trump’s new concertina wire off the fence at the border to put around and protect their own homes.
  2. The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps says Trump poses a risk to combat readiness by sending troops to the border and by using military funding for the border wall. Already they’ve had to cancel several trainings and delay much-needed repairs to their bases.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro visits the White House, and says this (to which Trump vigorously nods in agreement): The U.S. and Brazil are together ”in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes, and against fake news.” No wonder they call him the Trump of the Tropics.
    • Bolsonaro has previously said he’d rather his son die than be gay and that parents should beat the gay out of their children. Nice guy.
  1. The Supreme Court rules that people with past criminal records can be detained indefinitely throughout the course of their deportation proceedings even if they’ve never committed another crime. This will likely cause more overcrowding in detention centers.
  2. In yet another desecration of a Jewish cemetery, vandals knock over 59 gravestones and mark them with antisemitic slurs, swastikas, and Hitler references.
  3. House Democrats reintroduce a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of groups protected in the Civil Rights Act. Why? Because most states don’t provide protections, and you can be kicked out of your apartment or fired from your job for being part of the LGBTQ community.
  4. The U.S. has denied travel visas to several women trying to participate in the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women. Some of these women fell under the Muslim Ban, but the U.S. government technically isn’t allowed to prevent individuals from going to the UN headquarters in New York. The same thing happened last year.
  5. A flight attendant for Mesa Airlines out of Arizona put Mexico and Canada on her “no fly” list because she’s a DACA recipient and Trump’s new rules prevent her from flying outside the country. They put her on a flight to Mexico anyway, and not surprisingly she was detained. And even though she’s from Peru, they sent her back to Mexico. She was held for over a month before finally being released.
  6. A comparison of hate-crime incidents and Trump rallies shows that counties where Trump rallies were held had a 226% increase in hate crimes vs. counties that didn’t host Trump rallies. The study controlled for crime rates and active hate groups, among other things, and counties that held rallies were compared to similar counties that did not.
  7. Despite the Trump administration’s announcement last week that they’re moving forward on the ban on transgender troops, a judge blocks them from doing so. Apparently the administration says that a previous court order blocking the ban was lifted, but it wasn’t.
  8. As part of a court settlement, the state of Michigan says they’ll no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ couples.
  9. Indiana and New Mexico add non-binary gender options to official documents, and United Airlines adds the option for booking flights.
  10. Someone vandalizes a mosque in southern California with fire and graffiti referencing the New Zealand killing of nearly 50 Muslims in two mosques. What kind of person glorifies a mass killing? Geez.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Midwest is hit with record flooding, and it’s not done yet. There’s still snowmelt coming along with spring rains. Floating ice in the floodwaters has only increased the damage.
    • Nebraska is largely under emergency declarations. Flooding also hit parts of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Wyoming (and earlier this year, Michigan, Illinois, and California).
    • The flooding has killed livestock, destroyed grain bins, and closed businesses. A number of farmers aren’t expected to recover from this.
  1. A cyclone hits Mozambique, killing at least 750 people.
  2. A federal judge rules that the Department of the Interior (specifically the BLM) broke the law by ignoring climate impact studies in their decisions to open Wyoming lands to gas and oil drilling under Obama.
    • This could become a stumbling block to the Trump administration’s efforts to further expand gas and oil drilling.
    • The judge doesn’t block the drilling outright, but directs the BLM to perform climate impact evaluations again.
  1. Newly released audio recordings of a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America show that shortly after David Bernhardt was appointed to the second highest position in the Interior Department, members laughed about their unprecedented access to the president and administration.
    • Bernhardt is currently nominated to become Secretary of the Interior, replacing Ryan Zinke.
    • So far, the Interior has granted the Independent Petroleum Association of America nearly all of their deregulation requests.
  1. California’s population grew by 11.7% since 2005, but gas consumption is down and the state runs on 33% renewable energy (two years ahead of schedule).
  2. Carbon dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom decrease for the sixth year in a row.
  3. Nevada joins the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, making it the 23rd state to join.

Budget/Economy:

  1. February’s job report was dismal, with just 20,000 jobs added. Of those, nearly 3/4 were created in one state—California.
  2. The U.S. also had its largest monthly deficit ever in February, coming to $234 billion. The previous high was $231.7 billion in February of 2012.
  3. General Motors plans to idle five of their U.S. plants and lay off 14,000 workers. Trump pressures them to stay open or sell to another company that can use the factories.
  4. The Trump administration wants to cap federal student loan borrowing, saying that will cause schools to lower tuition fees. School administrators say that isn’t how it works.
  5. Betsy DeVos wants to stop subsidizing low-income students and wants to end loan forgiveness for public service workers.
  6. The Trump administration says that the tax cuts won’t create 3% growth after all. We also need to rollback labor regulations (I think businesses have already gotten a pretty decent break here), a $1 trillion infrastructure plan (yes!), and additional tax cuts (how’re we supposed to pay for the infrastructure then?).

Elections:

  1. Arizona pulls out of the controversial Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program. Crosscheck was founded to compare voter records across states to make sure people aren’t registered to vote in more than one state, and to purge voter rolls if they are. After Kris Kobach took over the program, false matches started coming to light and multiple lawsuits ensued (one claiming that the system falsely matches records in 99% of all matches).
    • Nine states have dropped from the Crosscheck program so far.
    • 26 states belong to a different program, the Electronic Registration Information Center, founded by Pew Charitable Trusts.
  1. Ever since voters in Florida passed Amendment 4 last year, restoring voting rights to ex-felons who’ve completed their sentence, the state government has been working on ways to stymie that effort. Their House just passed a bill that would make ex-felons pay fees and fines before getting their voting rights back.
    • There’s a question of whether this is constitutional (imposing fees or taxes on voting).
    • And why did so many voters vote for this issue and then go on to vote for officials that they knew would oppose it?
  1. A federal court orders legislators in Mississippi to redraw a State Senate district that they previously drew to dilute minority voting power. The judge says the district violates the Voting Rights Act.
  2. Trump says it’s Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s fault that the economy didn’t exceed 4% growth last year.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Paul Ryan will join the board of Fox Corp’s new organization after the sale of their film and TV assets to Disney.
  2. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump both use WhatsApp and personal email accounts for official government business. But her emails…
  3. Trump lays into John McCain and then blames the media for his outburst when he doesn’t get the audience response he was expecting. He did this during a speech in Ohio and on Twitter with no prodding from any members of the media.
  4. Within days of each other, two Parkland school shooter survivors commit suicide. We passed the year anniversary 5 weeks ago. In the same week, one of the parents who lost his child in the Sandy Hook shooting also commits suicide. He and his wife started a foundation to combat violence.
  5. Trump signs an executive order forcing colleges to comply with his standards of free speech in order to receive certain federal grants.
  6. The Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to targets of Trump’s ire pleads guilty. He says he didn’t design them to blow up, though he knew they could’ve. He sounds pretty remorseful.
  7. The DoD Inspector General opens an investigation into whether Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan showed favoritism to Boeing over other manufacturers.
  8. Teachers from an elementary school in Indiana sue the local sheriff’s office after the office conducted an active shooter drill where they took staff into a room in small groups at a time, lined them up on their knees, and shot at them from behind using plastic pellets.
 What could go wrong?

Polls:

  1. The U.S. drops to number 19 in the World Happiness Report, which is still pretty good when you consider they look at 156 countries. Finland is still the happiest country on earth.
  2. 78% of the Republican Fox News audience thinks Trump is the most successful president in history. 79% say U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to sabotage him. Only 49% of Republicans who don’t watch Fox News believe either of those things. Read into that what you want…

Week 104 in Trump

Posted on January 22, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Tijuana, Mexico--where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean and people sit on the fence and dream. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

I’m so not ready for this… the 2020 campaign season is already starting, with a bunch of Democrats declaring a presidential run. And that means that the disinformation campaigns are already out in force. So please remember to check your facts and don’t believe everything you hear. Here’s some advice for trolls that’s circulating on 4Chan to make Democrats sound conflicted or negative about Elizabeth Warren:

“Pose as a concerned Democrat and criticize her for being white,” one wrote. “Criticize her for being a woman. Do whatever it takes to further divide the left and prevent them from unifying behind a candidate for 2020. If we can manufacture another Bernie/Hillary split, they’ll get crushed in the general election.”

Here’s what really happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In late December, Trump signed an executive order that expands logging on public lands. The EO also orders the clearing of underbrush on 4 million acres and treating pests on another 1.5 million acres. Trump says this will help prevent forest fires, but experts say this is only useful when done near homes. The EO could mean a 30% increase for the logging industry.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. Here’s some fallout from the shutdown this week:
    • The Federal Aviation Administration calls back furloughed safety inspectors to work without pay. The IRS does the same with its employees, and the FDA brings back food safety inspectors (without pay). U.S. Fish and Wildlife bring back some workers so people can hunt on wildlife refuges.
    • The Coast Guard becomes the first branch of the armed services to not get paid.
    • FBI agents are now working without pay.
    • The SEC stops processing initial public offerings.
    • The NTSB suspends investigations of fatal accidents.
    • The State Department is calling furloughed diplomats to come back to work without pay.
    • Trump’s economists double their estimation of how much economic growth is being lost each week of the shutdown.
    • Some states begin allowing federal workers who are working but not being paid to receive unemployment benefits. The Trump administration has said these workers don’t qualify for benefits.
    • Over 40,000 immigration hearings have been cancelled due to the shutdown. Immigrants who miss their hearings are being given new dates years from now.
    • Businesses are doing their part to help furloughed workers by helping them to delay payments and reorganize loans, and by providing free services and free food.
    • The NY Met gives free tickets to furloughed workers to see their performances.
  1. A federal judge denies requests from federal employees and unions 1) to require that air traffic controllers be paid, and 2) that employees who are essential shouldn’t be forced to work without pay.
  2. The House passes a package to reopen the government, and, for the third time this year, Mitch McConnell block bills to reopen the government in the Senate.
  3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it’s Democrats fault that Trump had to feed the Clemson Tigers champion football team fast food.
  4. Nancy Pelosi sends Trump a letter saying they need to postpone the State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends due to security concerns. The White House asks Mitch McConnell if he can invite them to do it in the Senate instead.
  5. In apparent retaliation, Trump postpones Pelosi’s congressional delegation (codel) trip where Pelosi planned to visit NATO officials in Brussels and then troops in Afghanistan. The codel was already on a bus on the way to the plane and Capitol Police already had their people on the ground in Europe awaiting their arrival.
  6. Trump orders that government officials can’t use military planes until the shutdown is over. Then he sends Melania to Mar-a-Lago on a military plane.
  7. Trump says Pelosi and her group can take a commercial flight if she wants. Recent history note: Trump took an official plane to Iraq during the shutdown.
  8. Pelosi says she’s now postponing even their commercial flight abroad because Trump took divulged the codel’s travel plans to the public.
  9. Nearly 400 immigrants tunneled under a border wall in Arizona and present themselves to border patrol agents for asylum.
  10. While border crossings are down, family units now makes up 80% of apprehensions. And they’re mostly seeking asylum.
  11. Trump starts telling stories about women trafficked over the border who’s mouths are taped with electrical tape. He morphs the story to include multiple kinds of tape and body parts. People who work with anti-trafficking NGOs at the border say it’s possible, but they haven’t seen it.
  12. Trump offers Democrats a three-year reprieve for people currently protected by DACA and TPS, saying he won’t try to deport them during that time if they fund his wall. Soooo he tried to take away DACA and TPS, and now he says he’ll give them back if Democrats give him the wall. Again, the courts have struck down his actions on DACA and TPS, so they’re currently protected by the courts.
    • Conservative pundits call this amnesty. To be clear, this is not what amnesty looks like.
  1. Here’s where Pelosi says Democrats want border funding to go toward:
    • Increased infrastructure investments at our ports of entry including additional ports and roads;
    • Advanced technology to scan for drugs, weapons and contraband and to detect unauthorized crossings;
    • More customs personnel including filling the more than 3,000 customs and border patrol vacancies; and
    • More immigration judges.
  1. The House cancels January recess in order to deal with the shutdown.
  2. The DOJ hires two lawyers likely to deal with issues of eminent domain at the border.

Russia:

  1. Mueller’s team subpoenas three new Jerome Corsi associates to testify before the grand jury. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Corsi himself.
  2. Both Mueller and Manhattan prosecutors are investigating a breakfast event held at the Trump International Hotel in DC two days before Trump’s inauguration. In attendance were Michael Flynn, Devin Nunes, and several foreign diplomats.
  3. The House votes to overturn the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on a company that Oleg Deripaska has a stake in. 57 Senators, including 11 Republicans, also vote to keep sanctions, but it falls short of the 60 votes required to overturn the decision.
    • Under the Treasury decision, Deripaska must reduce his stake in two companies and the other sanctions against him remain. But a binding and signed document shows that it allows Deripaska to get rid of $100s of millions in debt and for him and his associates to retain a large share of ownership.
    • The primary company involved is a major aluminum producer, and the sanctions are hurting American companies.
    • With an overwhelming majority, the House passes a resolution of disapproval for rolling back the sanctions.
  1. Last year, I refrained from reporting on Anastasia Vashukevich, who says she was Deripaska’s mistress and that she has tapes of him bragging about how Russia stole our 2016 elections. She was subsequently arrested in Thailand on charges of prostitution. So I was waiting to see what would come of this, if anything. This week, Thailand releases her and deports her to Belarus… with a layover in Moscow where officials there arrest her at the airport in dramatic fashion.
  2. BuzzFeed releases a report that starts out with a bang but quickly fizzles. (Note that I don’t typically use BuzzFeed as a source, but the story generated a lot of buzz, so I figured it was newsworthy.)
    • BuzzFeed reports that Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations to hide Trump’s involvement.
    • Trump’s legal team reaches out to Mueller’s office about this.
    • Mueller’s office disputes parts of the reporting, but not the substance. This is important because his office rarely jumps in with statements on news stories. They issue this statement:
      “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
    • BuzzFeed stands by their story, but they’re also working to learn what specific parts Mueller’s team is disputing.
    • If the reporting turns out to be right, it would mean Donald Jr. perjured himself during his testimony to Congress.
  1. Rudy Giuliani says Trump and Cohen were discussing building a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout 2016, possibly into November.
  2. Giuliani also admits that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but he maintains that Trump did not. He later says he doesn’t know if there was any collusion.
  3. Cohen’s testimony before Congress next month will be limited so as not to interfere with Mueller’s investigation. So if you were expecting the full scoop, you’re not going to get it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A new report from the Inspector General for the General Services Administration says that GSA officials chose to ignore the constitution’s anti-corruption clauses when they continued leasing the Old Post Office Building to the Trump International Hotel after Trump took office.
    • An example of why this is an issue: Last year when T-Mobile needed approval from the Trump administration for a merger, nine T-Mobile executives booked rooms at the hotel with one of them staying there at least 10 times.
  1. Michael Cohen confirms that he paid a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump’s favor during the 2016 elections. He also says this was “at the direction of and the sole benefit of” Trump. I don’t think this is illegal, but it is ironic given that Trump kept complaining about how rigged the polls are.
    • Fun fact: Cohen also used this company to promote himself as a sex symbol on Twitter.
  1. Court filings show that Paul Manafort attempted to fill Trump’s administration with his allies, but it’s not clear how successful he was.

Courts/Justice:

  1. William Barr, who’s currently being evaluated for confirmation as Attorney General, once said that the DOJ might need some “political supervision.” He thinks that we went too far in pushing the DOJ to be independent following Watergate.
    • Barr doesn’t say he wouldn’t jail journalists if they report on things that “might hurt the country.”
    • Barr says it’s vitally important that Mueller be able to complete his investigation, but he refuses to recuse himself even though he has expressed opinions on the case previously without full knowledge of the evidence obtained so far.
    • It takes Trump by surprise to learn during Barr’s testimony that Barr has been friends and colleagues with Mueller for 30 years. I would’ve thought that would come out in the vetting process. Was there a vetting process?
    • Unlike Jeff Sessions, Barr says he won’t go after marijuana sales in states where it’s legal.
  1. A district judge says Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes must answer questions for a court case in writing, but denies a request to make them sit for depositions. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department last year over the handling of missing emails. Rice and Rhodes will answer questions about the talking points used after the Benghazi attacks. Because that hasn’t been investigated enough yet.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge issues a nationwide injunction against Trump’s attempted rollback of the ACA’s birth-control mandate. Just previous to that, a different judge blocked the rule for several states just hours before it was to take effect.
    • If successful, Trump’s rollback would let employers avoid providing contraceptive coverage as part of the insurance policies they offer to their employees. Under the ACA, they must provide this at no cost.
  1. WHO issues a list of the top 10 most significant health issues facing us today (in no particular order):
    • Air pollution and climate change
    • Noncommunicable diseases (like heart disease, cancer, diabetes)
    • A global flu pandemic
    • Fragile and vulnerable settings (caused by things like drought, famine, and war)
    • Antimicrobial resistance to existing treatments
    • Weak primary healthcare
    • Anti-vaccination movements
    • High-threat pathogens (like Zika, Ebola, and SARS)
    • Dengue fever
    • HIV
  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that stopped Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood. In the original case, Texas tried to oust Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid program based on the videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood workers discussing illegal sales of fetal material. This doesn’t reverse the ruling, but instead throws the ball back into the original judge’s court and forces him to use a different standard to review the case.
  2. The Senate fails to get the 60 votes needed to pass a bill that would permanently ban federal funding for abortions and place new restrictions on abortions.

International:

  1. Trump has privately and repeatedly pushed withdrawing from NATO. At the NATO summit last summer, he told his national security officials that he didn’t see the point of the coalition. Both Jim Mattis and John Bolton spent the summit scrambling to make sure there was no mention of a withdrawal.
  2. Turkish President Erdogan says Trump called him up and said that he’s still going to withdraw troops from Syria.
  3. The UK Parliament fails to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal with a vote of 432 to 202, a huge defeat for her government.
    • As a result, May faces a vote of no confidence, which she wins.
    • The official Brexit due date is March 29. May can try to ask the EU for more concessions, but they’ve drawn a firm line.
    • It’s possible this will lead to another vote on Brexit, but it’s not clear that if voters decide to NOT Brexit that it wouldn’t happen anyway.
    • Parliament could amend the EU Withdrawal Act to force May to request an Article 50 extension on the Brexit deadline if there is no agreement on an exit plan.
  1. An explosion in Syria kills two U.S. troops and two civilians, with the Islamic State claiming responsibility. Just a few weeks ago, Trump said ISIS was defeated and we’re pulling troops out of Syria.
    • On the day of the explosion, Mike Pence states that “the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”
    • Brett McGurk, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, says that Trump’s choice to withdraw troops is giving IS fighters new life.
  1. Trump plans another North Korea summit with Kim Jong Un in February. A new report claims there are at least 20 previously undisclosed ballistic missile sites in North Korea.
  2. The Trump administration rejects a deal with Russia to keep the Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is intended to contain nuclear arms proliferation. They say there’s no way to verify Russia is keeping their end of the deal. This sets the stage for a six-month withdrawal from the treaty starting next month.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Three GOP Members of Congress have either had their committee assignments stripped or won’t get any assignments due to misconduct:
    • Steve King: Stripped of assignments due to racist comments.
    • Duncan Hunter: Indicted (when elected)
    • Chris Collins: Indicted (when elected)

Family Separation:

  1. An audit finds that the Trump administration has separated thousands more children than was publicly known. They started separating families over six months before they announced it, and they didn’t track those families. So we don’t know exactly how many, where the parents or children are, or whether they’ve been reunited.
    • The first separations started no later than October of 2017; Jeff Sessions didn’t announce the policy until May of 2018.
    • The separations continued after Trump ended the policy in June of 2018 (largely due to a court order).
    • Amnesty International estimates 8,000 “family units” were separated. I’m not sure what they mean by family unit.
  1. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asks the FBI to open an investigation into whether Kirstjen Nielsen lied under oath to Congress when she said that the administration never had a policy for family separation.
  2. Merkley gave NBC News a draft of a 2017 memo from the DHS and DOJ that describes plans to separate families, to deport minors and deny them asylum hearings, and to force asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in Mexico instead of the U.S.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A judge blocks the Commerce Department from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and rakes Secretary Wilbur Ross over the coals in his ruling. He says Ross and his aides broke a “smorgasbord” of federal rules, cherry-picked facts, twisted evidence, hid their deliberations, and lied under oath.
  2. The Pentagon extends the mission of the troops assisting DHS along the border through September. There are about 2,300 troops still at the border, down from 5,900.
  3. The Virginia Senate ratifies the ERA (yes, this is still a thing). If the GOP-led House of Delegates follows suit, we’ll have enough state ratifications to finally ratify it. Interesting history note: The original draft of the amendment was created almost 100 years ago, in 1921. Can we get this done already? We shouldn’t need to!
  4. The House passes a resolution nearly unanimously condemning white supremacy and white nationalism. Even Steve King, at whom the resolution is directed, voted for it. The lone nay vote, Democrat Bobby Rush, doesn’t think the wording is strong enough.
  5. While Representative Tony Cárdenas was speaking on the House floor, a Republican representative yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” The congressman later called Cárdenas to apologize and said he wasn’t addressing him, he was referring to the Democratic contingent that had a retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year. At the time, the House was trying to pass a continuing resolution to reopen nine departments.
  6. Hundreds of thousands show up across the country for the third annual Women’s March. The marches have gotten smaller each year, and this year the National March in DC was marred by accusations of anti-Semitism.
  7. New York bans gay conversation therapy, and adds gender identity and gender expression to their anti-discrimination laws.
  8. The new Democratic governor of Kansas reinstates protections for LGBTQ state employees.
  9. The Trump Organization received at least 192 visas for foreign workers last year. That’s the highest number since 2008.

Climate/EPA:

  1. On top of learning earlier this month that the oceans are warming waaaay faster than we thought, now we learn that the Antarctic is now losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 80s. It’s gone from 40 billion tons a year to 252 billion tons.
  2. The U.S. is increasing oil and gas drilling faster than any other nation, even though scientists say we have just 11 years to sort out this whole climate change thing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) becomes the first woman and the first African American to chart the Financial Services Committee in the House.
  2. Los Angeles County teachers strike for higher wages and an increase in staffing levels. They’re trying to bring attention to the needs of public schools.
  3. Our six biggest banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs) made $100 billion in profit last year. That’s a first, it’s expected to grow when 4th quarter numbers come in, and it’s due to the tax cuts.
  4. The Trump administration refuses to extend emergency food assistance to Puerto Rico, calling it “excessive and unnecessary.”
  5. Economists worry that the extended shutdown could push us into a contraction. A contraction starts when there are two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
  6. Economic growth was already slowing in the last quarter of 2018, with downward pressures including the trade war with China, the fading effects of the $1.5 trillion tax cut, and slower global growth in general. The government shutdown is expected to slow it further.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge blocks parts of the lame duck bills passed in Wisconsin aimed at disenfranchising typically Democratic voters. The judge blocks attempts to curb early voting, to limit the use of student IDs, and to limit the use of receipts for people with exceptional barriers to getting IDs.
  2. McConnell accuses Democrats of encouraging voter fraud and trying to swing elections toward one party with their sweeping election reform bill. His exact words are “power grab” and “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party.”
    • There’s a general summary of the bill here (under Legislation): http://cjrules.com/week-102-in-trump/
    • The point of the bill is to make sure every citizen can vote and none are disenfranchised from their right to vote. So I guess if more people voting swings elections toward one party…
  1. New York passes election reform bills to allow early voting, preregistration of minors (so they’re able to vote upon turning 18), and voting by mail.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump officials reverse an Obama-era safety rule (this is so commonplace that it isn’t even news). This rule required trains that carry flammable material (like oil) to install special brakes to reduce the risk of derailment and explosion. The move was proposed just over a year ago, right around the time the Amtrak train derailed in Washington.
  2. A federal judge finds four women guilty after they enter a national park and leave food and water for immigrants crossing the border. The charges include entering a national refuge without a permit, driving a vehicle in a national refuge, and leaving things behind in a national refuge.
  3. Ouch. Betsy DeVos breaks her pelvis and hip socket in a biking accident.

Polls:

  1. 57% of American voters say they’ll definitely vote against Trump in 2020.
    • 30% say they’ll vote for Trump in 2020.
    • 13% say they have no idea who they’ll vote for.
  1. 72% of federal workers oppose the shutdown, with 64% strongly opposed.
    • 21% support the shutdown, with 14% strongly supporting.
  1. 56% of federal workers oppose building the wall, with 45% strongly opposed.
    • 34% support building the wall, with 25% strongly supporting.

Week 100 in Trump

Posted on December 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Happy government shutdown! What better way to mark the 100th week under Trump? Just a reminder, he told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer he’d take ownership of a shutdown, then he said he wouldn’t cause a shutdown, then he caused a shutdown, and then he blamed it on Democrats. Here’s what Trump had to say in 2013 about the shutdown under Obama:

“You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He has to get (the Speaker of the House) and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal… And, unfortunately, he has never been a dealmaker. That wasn’t his expertise before he went into politics and it’s obviously not his expertise now. But you have to get the people in a room and you have to get a deal.”

Here’s what else happened in week 100…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Democratic legislators in New Jersey rethink their plans to essentially make gerrymandering permanent in the state after receiving pushback from Republicans, Democrats, progressives, their Democratic governor, Eric Holder, and others. It’s no secret I’m for independent commissions drawing these lines; lawmakers should never be able to draw their own districts.
  2. The reasoning behind Betsy DeVos’s decision to end the policy of making sure minorities are not disciplined more harshly than white students is that it will help end school shootings. Huh? I don’t think any of the shootings have been perpetrated by a minority student.

Russia:

  1. We’re at the end of Trump’s second year in office, and there are 17 known investigations into Trump and Russia from seven different prosecutors (and not including congressional investigations). Here’s a list with the current status of each (all are still ongoing):
    • Russian government meddling in our elections: 25 indicted, 1 guilty plea, and 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Wikileaks: 2 Trump campaign associates implicated, with 1 of them breaking their plea agreement.
    • MidEast countries seeking to influence the Trump campaign: 2 cooperation agreements, but no public court activity.
    • Paul Manafort: 4 guilty pleas, 1 broken plea agreement, 1 indicted, and 1 convicted.
    • Trump Tower Moscow: 1 guilty plea
    • Trump campaign/transition team contacts with Russian officials: 2 guilty pleas, 16 people are known to have made contact.
    • Obstruction of justice: no public court activity.
    • Campaign involvement with Trump Organization finances: 1 guilty plea, 2 cooperation agreements.
    • Foreign donations to the inaugural committee and to Trump’s super PAC: 1 cooperation agreement, no public court activity.
    • Americans lobbying for foreign governments without registering as foreign agents: 2 charged, 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Russian spy embedded in the NRA: 1 guilty plea (Maria Butina).
    • Internet Research Agency’s election activities: 2 investigations and 2 indictments.
    • Michael Flynn’s activities in regard to Turkey: 1 guilty plea.
    • Tax fraud by Trump and Trump Organization: no indictments yet.
    • Campaign finance fraud and self-dealing by the Trump Foundation: Foundation closed.
    • Violations of the emoluments clause: making its way through court.
  1. Republicans in the House Judiciary and Oversight committees question James Comey again behind closed doors about the investigation into Hillary’s emails, the Steele Dossier, and Russian meddling in our elections. The transcript is made public the next day. There’s not really anything new to learn.
  2. Comey blasts the congressional hearings, saying they’re just wasting time and attacking U.S. intelligence agencies. He says Republican legislators need to stand up for American values and stop fearing their base.
  3. Comey explains his press conference in 2016 about the email investigation, saying he was worried about the leaks coming from the New York FBI office (to Rudy Giuliani) and felt he needed to get out ahead of those leaks.
  4. Comey accuses Trump of lying about the FBI to discredit investigations.
  5. New documents show that Trump had signed a letter of intent for the Trump Tower Moscow project on October 28, 2015. Giuliani previously said no one ever signed a letter of intent.
  6. Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicted Cohen’s current testimony. Jr. also contradicted the letter of intent when he said all activity on the Trump Tower Moscow project ended in 2014.
  7. The judge for Michael Flynn’s sentencing rips into Flynn for selling out his country and asks the prosecutors if there’s anything else they can charge Flynn with. He asks Flynn if he wants a delay in sentencing in order to cooperate more fully, which Flynn accepts. A few things here:
    • The judge has access to the redacted information in the court documents that we can’t see.
    • Conservative pundits praise the judge in the days leading up to Flynn’s hearing. Not so much in the days after.
    • Flynn supporters demonstrate outside the courthouse for leniency.
    • Flynn seemed to be on the road to getting the lightest possible sentence (if any), but the judge is irked by Flynn’s lawyers’ attempt to blame the FBI for entrapping Flynn when they questioned him. The judge gets Flynn’s lawyers to retract those accusations.
    • The judge says that Flynn worked as a foreign agent while in the White House, which he later corrects. Flynn’s foreign activities had ended by the time he got to the White House.
    • Trump wishes Flynn luck before the hearing.
  1. Two of Michael Flynn’s associates are arrested over their activities on Turkey’s behalf. Prosecutors in Northern Virginia charge Bijan Rafiekian and Ekim Alptekin with conspiracy to “covertly and unlawfully” influence U.S. politicians.
  2. Mueller releases a redacted memo describing the lies Flynn told in his interviews with FBI agents. The two major lies are:
    • He said he didn’t try to sway the UN Security Council’s vote on Israeli settlements during the transition period.
    • He said he didn’t tell Russian Ambassador Kislyak not to retaliate over Obama’s sanctions against Russia during the transition period.
  1. For the third time, Mitch McConnell blocks Jeff Flake’s bill to protect Mueller’s investigation.
  2. It turns out that Russian trolls were behind a campaign to smear Mueller by claiming that he was corrupt, that he had worked with radical Islamic groups, and that Russian interference in our elections is all just conspiracy theories.
  3. The Trump administration plans to lift sanctions against three Russian companies with ties to Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has had close financial ties to Paul Manafort.
  4. After consulting with ethics officials who tell him to recuse himself from any Russia investigations, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker refuses to do so.
  5. Putin accuses the U.S. of risking a collapse in the control of nuclear arms because Trump is threatening to pull out of a Cold War treaty limiting missile development. Putin also says the world is underestimating the threat of nuclear war.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit. The Foundation will also give away its remaining assets. The New York attorney general accuses the foundation of providing money to Trump’s businesses and for his personal use, and of illegally providing campaign funds.
  2. Under the lawsuit, the foundation might have to pay restitution, and Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric could be barred from serving on other charity boards.
  3. Despite emails showing funds from the foundation being used for campaign purposes, Trump signed filings each year saying that the foundation never engaged in political activities.
  4. During the 2016 election cycle, the Trump campaign funded ad buys through groups accused of illegally coordinating between the campaign and the NRA. The groups used a shell company to hide their activities. The Trump campaign stopped funding the groups after the 2016 election, but now Trump’s 2020 campaign is using the same groups and the same shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The federal judges assessing the 83 ethics complaints against Brett Kavanaugh dismiss all complaints, not because they don’t think the complaints are justified but because lower court judges have no authority to discipline Supreme Court justices.
  2. A judge rules that four people who brought a lawsuit against Trump and his organization over sham businesses can stay anonymous. They made the request to use pseudonyms over fear of retaliation, which the judge agreed with; she says “The manner in which the president has used his position and platform to affect the course of pending court cases is really without precedent.”
  3. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn a lower court ruling that Trump can’t immediately deport people who cross the border illegally to seek asylum. The administration argues that they can use the illegal action of crossing to deny asylum. Our law is pretty explicit that the administration is wrong—anyone who comes to the U.S. can apply for asylum no matter how they got here.
    • Not surprisingly, Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Gorsuch support the administration’s argument. Ruth Bader Ginsberg voted in opposition from her hospital bed as she was recovering from lung surgery.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Democrat send a letter to the head of the Health and Human Services Department accusing them of violating a federal court order by directing funds toward abstinence-only pregnancy prevention programs. The court order was put in place when a court found that the administration had illegally cancelled a pregnancy prevention program in favor of abstinence-only education.
  2. Ohio Governor Kasich signs a strict abortion bill into law, effectively banning abortions after 12 weeks of gestation. He vetoes a similar, more restrictive heartbeat bill (which would ban abortions after 10 weeks).
    • Ohio legislators say they’ll try to override his heartbeat bill veto.
    • Both bills would face uphill battles in courts.
  1. The VA hasn’t spend millions of dollars that were supposed to be used for suicide prevention for veterans.

International:

  1. Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Syria within 30 days. How’d that all go down? Oy…here’s a breakdown:
    • Trump speaks to Turkey’s President Erdogan on the phone. Erdogan can’t understand why the U.S. still arms Syrian Kurdish fighters (Turkey views the Kurds as a threat).
    • Trump says the Islamic State has been defeated in Syria (they haven’t; there are an estimated 14,500 IS fighters in Syria). Erdogan says their fighters can take care of what’s left.
    • Trump says, “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.” And boom. The deed is done.
  1. Kurdish fighters consider releasing over 3,000 Islamic State prisoners.
  2. General Jim Mattis resigns as Secretary of Defense as of the end of February. Could this be related to Trump totally taking Mattis by surprise with his announcement on Syria? Oh yeah. Turns out it’s related, all right.
    • In his resignation letter, Mattis says he and Trump have different views on how to respect and work with our allies and how to deal with authoritarian leaders. He says Trump deserves a Secretary of State who sees things more closely to the way Trump does. His letter reads as a mild rebuke of Trump’s foreign policies.
    • After tweeting about Mattis’s distinguished service, Trump decides to remove him two months early and says Mattis will be out by the New Year. Trump was apparently unhappy over the news coverage of the implications of the resignation letter.
    • Mattis wanted to stay on long enough to ensure a smooth and informed transition.
    • Trump installs Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan as Acting Defense Secretary. Shanahan has no military, international, or counterterrorism experience.
  1. On the heels of Mattis’s resignation, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition to fight ISIS, resigns in protest of Trump’s abrupt decision to pull troops out of Syria.
  2. Trump says he’s withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan—around half of all our troops there. The Taliban then declares victory in Afghanistan.
  3. Trump creates a new “Space Command,” a precursor to the Space Force (a new 6th branch of the military).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Voter rights groups file lawsuits against the lame duck bills passed by Republicans in the Wisconsin state legislature to cut the power of the incoming Democratic officials, specifically the bill cutting early voting periods.
  2. Congress passes a long-overdue prison reform bill. Here’s what’s in it:
    • Makes the conditions of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive.
    • Eases mandatory minimum prison sentences.
    • Provides more incentives for good behavior by prisoners.
    • Provides more incentives for prisoners to participate in rehabilitation programs.
  1. Outgoing Representative Bob Goodlatte blocks the Savannah Act from getting out of committee. Outgoing Senator Heidi Heitkamp brought up the bill to address the number of missing and murdered Native American women.
  2. The Senate passes a bill making lynching a federal crime. There have been attempts to pass this legislation for over a century.
  3. Trump urges Mitch McConnell to change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster so they can get funding for the wall. McConnell refuses, which could imply there aren’t enough Republican votes to support the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The World Economic Forum estimates that if the gap in economic opportunities between men and women keeps narrowing at its current rate, they will be equal in 202 years. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have the most economic equality; the U.S. ranks 51st.
  2. The judge who blocks Jeff Sessions‘ policy removing asylum protection from victims of domestic and gang violence also orders that anyone who was deported based on this policy be returned to the U.S. for a fair hearing. The judge (who is the same one overseeing Michael Flynn’s sentencing) says the policy violates the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
  3. U.S.-based anti-LGBTQ hate groups start working to meet, train, and support anti-LGBTQ groups in Italy. Good job, America—let’s spread the hate.
  4. A GoFundMe campaign raises about $14 million to help build the wall. So they’re about 1/100 of the way to raising enough to build about 1/8 of the wall.
    • The originator of the fundraiser is a triple-amputee Iraq vet.
    • The originator also lost his Facebook page, which trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories.
    • Republican legislators question whether that money can be used for a wall.
    • What happens to that money if none of the wall gets built?
  1. The Air Force fires two HIV-positive service members despite them both passing the fitness assessments. They were found unfit for duty because of Trump’s policy for “deploy or get out.” The policy removes service members who can’t be deployed abroad for more than 12 months, and HIV-positive members fall into that category.
  2. Video evidence shows that the Proud Boys initiated the violence with protestors when one of their members spoke at a Republican Club in New York City earlier this year.
  3. The Trump administration prevents a Yemeni mother whose child is on life support in Oakland, CA, from coming to the U.S. to say goodbye because she’s from a country included in the Muslim ban. The child has a rare brain disease, and his father (who is a U.S. citizen) brought him here for treatment. After public pressure, the Trump administration relents and allows her to come visit.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Interior Department takes a step forward in opening the Arctic Refuge for oil exploration and drilling by releasing its draft environmental impact report.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Senate passes a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until February 8. It still needs to be passed by the House and signed by Trump, but then…
  2. Trump is too chicken to tell us himself right before Christmas that he won’t sign the temporary spending bill to keep the government open until February because it doesn’t fund the wall. So he makes Paul Ryan tell us. We’re looking at a shutdown the weekend before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
  3. A shutdown means that more than 420,000 federal workers will work without pay and 380,000 will be furloughed. This also affects federal programs that help people obtain home and business loans, among other services.
  4. Trump blames Democrats for the shutdown even though when he met with Schumer and Pelosi, we all heard Trump say that he’d take full credit for a shutdown. He said he’d own it; he’d take the mantle.
  5. Because of the shutdown, Trump cancels his holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago and Senators who flew home turn right back around and get on a flight back to D.C.
  6. The Fed raises interest rates for the fourth time this year, but they’re also lowering expectations for the 2019 economy.
  7. The stock market has the worst week in a decade and the worst month since before the Great Depression. The market is on track to close down for the year.
  8. The Dow is up 18% so far under Trump; it was up 45% at this point under Obama. In fairness, Obama was starting from a Dow that was less than half what it was when Trump took over, so 45% was only around a 3,600 point gain under Obama. 18% under Trump is closer to a 3,000 point gain.
  9. Trump says it isn’t his fault that the stock market is down (even though he blamed Obama every time the market dropped under his administration).
  10. There’s a 23% chance of a recession in the next year.
  11. Steven Mnuchin tries to calm the market by making phone calls to certain financial CEOs, which only serves to confuse them. He wanted to reassure them that Trump isn’t planning to fire the Fed chairman as is rumored.
  12. Those CEOs say political noise is making the markets uncertain, including James Mattis’ departure, tariff threats, and the government shutdown.
  13. Trump authorizes the second rounds of bailout payments to farmers to help them get through the fallout from the tariffs, about $4.9 billion. China purchased no soy from the U.S. in November.
    • The USDA says some of the payments will be delayed due to the government shutdown.
  1. The House passes a new tax bill that provides disaster tax relief, delays and repeals some ACA taxes, fixes parts of last year’s tax cuts, improves the IRS, and repeals the Johnson Amendment (which bars nonprofits from endorsing political candidates).
  2. Sonny Perdue, head of the USDA, proposes changes to SNAP that would require “able-bodied” people between 18 and 49 with no dependents to either work or register for a training or education program if they’re on food stamps for three months or more. It’s estimated that this will drop 755,000 people from SNAP benefits.

Elections:

  1. In the 2017 Alabama senate elections where Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore, a group of social media experts used tactics perfected by Russian trolls to try to sway support for Jones. Even though it was a small-scale operation, Jones calls for an FEC investigation to make sure no laws were violated.
    • The efforts were funded by a LinkedIn cofounder.
    • It was such a small effort that it likely did not effect the outcome of the election.
    • Alabama’s secretary of state says they were aware that groups from both sides were doing this but that they couldn’t get any help from Facebook or Twitter to stop it.
  1. Trump’s re-election committee and the Republican National Committee announce they’ll merge, which will strengthen his hold over the party and form a formidable fundraising machine. This is a first for a presidential campaign.
  2. The Mercers, who were implicated in the Russian social media influence campaigns in our 2016 elections, pull back on financial support to Republicans in opposition to Trump’s policies.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration issues a regulation banning bump stocks. Anyone who already owns one has 90 days to turn them in or destroy them.
  2. Trump is already beginning to sour on Mick Mulvaney, who he just appointed as acting chief of staff. Trump’s not happy recently surfaced videos from before the election where we can hear Mulvaney calling Trump a terrible human being and describing Trump’s take on the border wall simplistic, absurd, and childish.